Phones 4u investigates box breaking

Phones 4u is investigating box breaking at one of its stores, after documents revealed a salesman had sold more than 300 prepay handsets to one customer in March alone.

The sales helped one staff member generate a total gross monthly profit of £21,998.

Mobile was sent documents that revealed the high sales figures in a Yorkshire store, with several members of staff involved.

Phones 4u is completing its investigation, but said: ‘You can be sure appropriate action will be taken as soon as the facts are known.’

Figures seen by Mobile suggest that the salesperson exceeded the Phones 4u monthly prepay sales target of 40 by more than 700%, after he sold more than 300 prepay handsets to the same customer. Two other staff members at the same store also sold over 100 handsets to the same buyer.

The handsets were sold to an independent phone store, and the high sales continued when a further 90 prepay phones were sold to the independent store on 4 April.

The vast majority of the phones were sold on Orange, with some sold on Virgin. The main devices were the Sony Ericsson K800i, the LG Shine, the Nokia 6300 and the Samsung U600. It is not known if the independent store that bought the devices will sell them through contract or export them.

Phones 4u has worked hard to curb box breaking because the structure of its commercial agreements with the networks means it would stand to lose money on prepay handsets sold to box breakers.

Phones 4u legal director Steven Lloyd said: ‘The store has been under investigation for the alleged activities by Phones 4u’s internal Security and Investigations department for several weeks.

‘The investigation has not yet been concluded and is extremely confidential, but initial indications suggest that Phones 4u procedures may have been improperly circumvented by individuals.

‘Phones 4u does not condone box breaking in any form, and this is demonstrable by the policies which it has in place and the feedback it receives from its network partners,’ Lloyd said.